The impact of concerning Seattle Mariners trend

Struggles during a brutal nine-game road trip to the east coast magnified a troubling trend for the Seattle Mariners.

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During a 2-7 East Coast trip in which the Mariners were outscored by 22 runs, their starting pitching struggled mightily and rarely pitched past the fifth inning.

Seattle’s starters allowed 27 runs in just 34 innings (6.49 ERA) over the nine starts on the road trip. Just three outings saw a starter complete six innings, which was a calling card of Seattle’s dominant staff a season ago.

The struggles from the starting rotation on the road isn’t a new development for this team. On the season, Seattle’s starters have the fifth-worst road ERA in baseball (4.93) and second worst road opponents’ batting average (.281) and slugging percentage (.472). Their 58 home runs allowed were also third worst. The lowly Colorado Rockies are the only team that ranks worst in at least three of those four categories.

It’s a far cry from what Seattle’s starters have done inside the confines of T-Mobile Park this year. At home, the M’s have the third-best ERA (3.22), second-best opponents’ average (.206) and third-best opponents’ slugging percentage (.348). Their 42 home runs allowed are tied for 16th.

Co-hosts Mike Salk and Brock Huard discussed the troubles the Mariners’ starting staff has had on the road during a recent episode of Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk.

“Starting pitching is like a really fast, elite defense in the NFL, where it just gives you a chance each and every game,” Huard said. “Offense can be a little finicky. You have an injury here, you’ve got depth concerns there, you got matchup issues. Maybe this group isn’t very good we’re playing, but we have a hard time blocking them. But if we’ve got a an elite, fast defense, it keeps us in games and gives us a shot to figure it out and find a way to score enough points to win.

“This has been … a cumulative issue out on the road this season for four-fifths of your starting (rotation).”

A bowling ball effect

The struggles the rotation has faced on the road have been widespread with all but one of Seattle’s starters having numbers on the road that don’t match what they’ve shown they are capable of doing.

Bryan Woo has been an exception to the troubling trend, posting a solid 3.48 ERA and holding opponents to a .233 batting average and .657 OPS. But that’s still a noticeable difference from the 2.39 ERA, .181 opponents’ batting average and .570 opponents’ OPS he has at home.

Here’s how the splits looks for the rest of Seattle’s five starters.

• Logan Gilbert – Home: 2.22 ERA, .141 opponents’ average, .450 opponents’ OPS. Road: 6.00 ERA, .293 opponents’ average, .864 opponents’ OPS.
• George Kirby – Home: 3.38 ERA, .234 opponents’ average, .616 opponents’ OPS. Road: 5.08 ERA, .259 opponents’ average, .739 opponents’ OPS.
• Luis Castillo – Home: 2.41 ERA, .202 opponents’ average, .600 opponents’ OPS. Road: 5.04 ERA, .320 opponents’ average, .882 opponents’ OPS.
• Bryce Miller – Home: 5.11 ERA, .247 opponents’ average, .730 opponents’ OPS. Road: 6.38 ERA, .309 opponents’ average, .869 opponents’ OPS.

During Seattle’s rough road trip, Salk thought the impact of the staff’s woes showed up in more than just the starters’ final lines. With the starters not going deep into games, it led to bullpen arms needing to cover more innings than they should, which included leaving lower-leverage arms in high-leverage situations while Seattle attempted to rally from early deficits.

“I know there’s been frustration over the last few years about the offense. I get it. I’m with you. No one’s arguing about it,” Salk said. “But when you don’t have starting pitching, nothing else matters. When you don’t have an offense but you’ve got starting pitching, you’re in every game. You’ve got a chance to win all of those games. Maybe you do, maybe you don’t. When you don’t have starting pitching, you don’t have a chance, and it just continues to hurt you.

“… It’s like a bowling ball knocking down pins, and the more pins it knocks down, the more pins those knock down,” Salk added. “And the next thing you know, you got a big problem.”

Huard shared a similar sentiment.

“It eats your bullpen,” he said. “It makes all those decisions that much more difficult. Which battle do you want to win? How do we win the battles? How do we win this long, arduous war? All of those things come into play when that kind of section of your team isn’t doing their job and isn’t delivering.”

Hear the full conversation at this link or in the audio player near the top of this story. Listen to Brock and Salk weekdays from 6-10 a.m. or find the podcast on the Seattle Sports app.

The impact of concerning Seattle Mariners trend

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